Oti Mabuse: My baby was born with serious infection as a result of my missed sepsis
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Oti Mabuse has opened up for the first time about the “traumatic” birth of her first child, who was born with a serious infection after doctors “missed” the dancer’s sepsis.
The former Strictly Come Dancing dancer said her baby daughter was born “very premature” and needed to spend six weeks in hospital before eventually being discharged.
Mabuse, 33, detailed how her 16-hour labour ended with her child being whisked away to run tests to make sure she was okay.
Doctors found the South African dancer had sepsis and her baby – which she and husband, Marius Iepure, have not announced the name of – had infections as a result.
Mabuse said her baby – who was born last autumn in a British hospital – was in “critical” condition in a “traumatic” first six weeks.
While the birth itself was “incredible, serene and everything she wanted”, she added: “The last bit was not what I had wanted, where you see your child for two minutes and then get taken away by a group of 10 midwives and doctors.
“That’s when things start to change and things start to hit you and you don’t get that skin on skin, you don’t get to hold your baby.
“I think we didn’t hold her for about a week, because she was still in an incubator with wires, with jaundice so she was under blue light.
“She had infections because it turned out I had sepsis and it’s something that was missed or not tested for.”
She added: “What happened was that when the bacteria around your womb, which protects the baby when the baby is still in the womb, when your water breaks it then attacks the baby. And so she had infections which obviously they did not have time to diagnose, and so all they had to do was give her antibiotics.”
She revealed she was left devastated when she was unable to have immediate skin on skin contact and then in tears when she could not get her wheelchair close enough to the incubator her baby was in.
“She was very premature, she came really, really early – unexpected premature which was a big, big shock,” she told the Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast.
“Going through that emotional trauma that you go through when you have a premature baby, and then being in hospital with the little one for six weeks and then finally coming out and having her home with friends and family over Christmas was really nice.”
Despite an initially seamless pregnancy where she felt “sexy”, “empowered” and saw her skin “glowing”, she was told she had gestational diabetes at 28 weeks, before the premature birth.
“When I saw her for the first time, shocked that I had done it, and she was the most beautiful human being I had ever seen in my life – gorgeous,” she said.
“In that moment when you’re so happy and feeling elated and it took 16 hours, and then they get taken away.
“Because now, born really tiny, really small, they had to check for infections, if her lungs are good enough, if she can eat on her own, if all her organs have developed and she’s well enough.”
However, she was very thankful for the care her baby received.
“The NHS, midwives, doctors and consultants were amazing,” she added.
“To be in hospital, and to find this new world, the neonatal world, which as a mum you don’t ever think you’re going to end up in, until you’re in it – my emotions were so high because it’s Christmas time.
“It’s not how you thought it would go.
“I was taken down in a wheelchair, you can’t get up.
“The first thing that you want to do is hold the baby, but you can’t, you have to just look at them.
“And I remember crying because I couldn’t get the wheelchair close enough to her bed and that was traumatising and emotionally very exhausting.”
After broadcaster Steph McGovern let Mabuse and her husband stay in her flat to be near the hospital, they were eventually discharged.
“The last 10 weeks have been hard, but life changing,” she said.
“I haven’t really spoken about it in public, because it was something that we went through and as hard as it was, there were so many learning curves and things to be grateful for.”
